The "elevator speech" is a helpful and generative response to everyone's hyperbusyness. It is a brief, carefully-constructed statement about the most important information about you (what you do best), your company, and your products, or the projects you're working on.
Developing your elevator pitch crystallizes first in your own mind, and then for others, the most important information about your value or competitive edge into a well-organized, delicious sentence or two or three of compelling information for the people you want to reach.
The idea behind the elevator speech is that—by accident—you run into Ms. Big in an elevator on the 25th floor. She asks what you do. You have an opportunity to give it your best shot before getting to the ground floor where you both get off. When you arrive at the lobby, she now knows everything of importance about what you do for a living, and why it is valuable to her and her company.
If you think you can already communicate your sales message clearly and concisely without doing this exercise, try doing it your way with a disinterested third party, and see how you feel about it. Obviously, it's not for you to share with your friends and co-workers who already know you quite well - it's a tool of introduction.
The elevator speech is a very powerful because it's concise and you've worked on it to refine your thinking.
Here are the six basic questions to address in your elevator speech:
What is your product/service/solution?
Who is the customer it is intended for?
What need or problem does it address?
What does it do?
How does it work and what are the benefits to me?
Why are you different and better than others?
What's your elevator pitch? If you live in a rural area where there are no elevators, think of it as your "walk down the hall" pitch.
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